For some reason Hollywood seems incapable of "getting" fantasy independent of others creative visions.
I would have more confidence in the final product if a popular novelization of D&D was being adapted, rather than something new from whole cloth.
And I absolutely do not believe going straight to a 150-200million budget film is the way to go.
I'd agree on all these points.
I think even a relatively simple structure would be fine. Like an adventure/campaign - I could see an entire movie being built off of that. But I agree that a completely free hand seems very unlikely to go well. The big problem with the novels is that most D&D novels aren't as good as other fantasy novels of similar genres or styles. Which I think makes it harder to justify them. Especially combined with the fact that many of them are outdated on top of that.
It could turn out fine but I'm just quite doubtful.
Unfortunately this movie seems to have C-grade casting written all over it. I mean, that’s no different to the other D&D movies, but I did have higher hopes initially.
That's not true though. These are bigger actors in terms of draw and better actors in terms of skill than the ones associated with the earlier movie. Just bring up the cast list for the old one.
en.wikipedia.org
Pine is an A-lister who has been male lead in a ton of movies, and the main character in a number, including big-budget Hollywood stuff.
Rodriguez is close to an A-lister, extremely well-known and well-liked generally, been in countless movies, especially action-adventure ones.
Smith has been the human lead in a movie - acting opposite Ryan Reynolds. He's very new but there's no reason to doubt his talent.
I feel like it's mean go through the 2000 movie's people, but none of the good guys had a background as good as Pine or Rodriguez. The biggest one was Marlon Wayans, and he was not a good actor, and only kind of funny. The lead was particularly badly cast, with a child actor who lacked charisma and really whilst people might vaguely know his face, he didn't have any name recognition (certainly not of a positive kind) and was already starring in direct-to-video stuff and "Made for Germany" TV movies and so on. Thora Birch was decent at acting and kind of known thanks to American Beauty (she wasn't the main girl, she was the daughter), but didn't actually get popular (and only briefly) until after the D&D movie, thanks largely to The Hole (if anyone remembers that).
I do think you're getting at a real issue though which is that, as yet, they don't have anyone who has significant draw or kudos, both of which could help the movie quite a bit. It's not as bad as the previous movie, not by a long shot, casting-wise. But they do need more, I think.
Being a good character actor with good material is more Important than being a fantastic leading actor with crappy material. The first D&D movie proved that pretty well I think.
How so?
There are no good actors in the 2000 D&D movie except Jeremy Irons, who has worked with terrible material to great effect countless times. Thora Birch is probably the next best and as I recall barely got any material, crappy or otherwise. Also, was there any "good material" for "good character actors" in the 2000 movie?
www.comicbookmovie.com
www.enworld.org
